former director of the krais's counterterrorism center and stephen flynn has been anned a vief to barack obama and george w. bush. jessica stern served 0 president clinton's national security council staff and is now at the harvard school of public health and bret stevens won a pulitzer prize for thiz excellent columns in the "wall street journal." thank you all. >> when you watched the response to what happened in boston, what were your thoughts in terms of our ability to handle these kinds of attacks. >> it was impressive and it drove home a core realism about the nature of dealing with terrorism attack when they manifest themselves. it is the bystanders, neighbors, supported by local fire department, police, emergency management folks and there's little question that americans took solace in the competence and compassion and the selflessness of people's response and that's an important message when we deal with this threat that we can handle it and bounce back quickly. that's also something that happened. i teach at northeast university. just a mile from where the attacks went off in copley